Uncharted
by Tangler
Summary: James and Juliet slowly learn how to adapt to life in the 1970s, but what happens when everything is ripped away from them? Suliet fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Uncharted**

Today, we know that time travel need not be confined to myths, science fiction, Hollywood movies, or even speculation by theoretical physicists. Time travel is possible. For example, an object traveling at high speeds ages more slowly than a stationary object. This means that if you were to travel into outer space and return, moving close to light speed, you could travel thousands of years into the Earth's future.

CLIFFORD PICKOVER, _Time: A Traveler's Guide_

**One:** Temperature Rising

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, his shoulder still throbbed like a sonofabitch, even though he had traded his makeshift beach condo in for some new, and surprisingly domestic, 1974 digs he still ached like it was still 2004. It was funny how time travel could get at you like that. Sawyer's mouth curled in a lopsided grimace and he wondered just how he had managed to piss the whole god damn universe off. He shifted fitfully on the lumpy couch and could tell he had a pounding headache before he even opened his eyes.

Slowly, blinking once than again he made an effort. Juliet was leaning over the back of the couch, regarding him curiously.

"Morning," she said, ducking her head when she realized she had been found out.

He let his lids fall shut again as he rolled away from her. "What the hell do you want?" he muttered.

"It's time to get up, James," she told him matter-of-factly.

"Somewhere in the world," he retorted, dryly.

"James." Her tone darkened.

"I need my beauty sleep, Sweetheart. Now how about you come back here in a few hours and we'll have ourselves a nice little chat," he did his best to ignore the arthritic feeling that shot through his shoulder joint as he moved.

Undaunted, she watched him flip his pillow over on top of his head and burrow firmly under it, shielding himself from anymore unwanted assaults.

Juliet strode over the fridge and returned with a half-filled pitcher of water. She yanked the pillow away and poured it over him without a second thought.

"FUCK!" He hissed, leaping to his feet with a loud yelp. "Son of a bitch! What the hell were ya tryn' ta do ta me?"

Juliet stared at him, clearly unmoved by his outburst. "You're late for work, James. It's almost 9:00." She said, as if it was obvious.

"Yeah, well there are nicer ways to wake a man up, Blondie," he seethed, but then did a double take and seemed to notice her for the first time, clad in a set of blue coveralls.

"Well hot damn. I didn't know you were that kinky." His eyes started to take a quick inventory of her form following her smooth curves down to...she hit him smack in the chest with his pillow before he could continue.

"You're dripping all over the carpet," she warned, though she appeared vaguely amused as he shot her one last glance before stomping off in the direction of the shower.

Juliet watched him disappear down the hall and wondered where the two weeks she had promised him had went. He'd only asked for two, but she had already given him four. They had watched Daniel Faraday get on the sub to Ann Arbor while James, Jin, and Miles were inducted as the newest members of the Dharma Security team, seeming to settle down into routine, yet still she stayed. She often wondered at which point she too had given into the monotony of everyday life. Her drive to leave soothed by something one can only feel when they are in the deepest of distress, the companionship of strangers. Jin was difficult to talk to, Miles could be downright standoffish at times, and James was impossible to live with, but they were a team, a band of brothers bound together by the strangest of circumstances.

When Sawyer entered the kitchen she was standing near the sink staring out the window. It was left open a crack so the scent of fresh-cut grass wafted in. It made them both feel uneasily domestic in this foolish masquerade they were being forced to play.

Their current living arrangements could hardly be helped, there were four of them and only two vacant houses, and James complained that Miles snored too loudly. Though she agreed, she could see that two weeks of sleeping on the couch were starting to take their toll on his already less than pleasant demeanour. Not that she hadn't offered to take turns with the one bed they had been provided with, but he had managed to turn every offer into a sexual innuendo. Thus he had resolved himself to taking the couch, since she asserted that he was incapable of behaving as anything more than a horny teenager.

"There's coffee on the table for you," she said, without turning to face him.

"Oh, you ain't gonna pour that over me too?" He retorted. His grin faltered when he noticed whatever mischief had struck her earlier had obviously fizzled away.

"It's the last of it." She ignored him. "Can you stop by the cafeteria after work and order us some more..." she paused "...I made a list of some other things we were out of too."

"A list…" he gripped the coffee mug, staring at it awkwardly, holding back the comment about her sudden bout of domesticity when he realized that he was playing exactly the same game. Sawyer was good at games, but he doubted that James LaFleur was.

Sighing, he took the list from her outstretched hand and shoved it into his side pocket, crumpling the paper. Coffee mug in hand, he stalked toward the door, pausing before he reached the knob.

"Oh and Blondie," he hesitated. "Have a good day at work."

He was gone before she could respond. She smiled slightly.

* * *

By mid-afternoon Sawyer felt as though he was severely hungover. He hadn't slept well for a few nights now, his neck hurt, his shoulder throbbed, and the dark cloud that had been looming over him since he had arrived in 1974, check that, arrived on this damn island, had turned him downright sour. Even Miles, who constantly teased him as to whether he had screwed Juliet yet, was careful to keep his distance. Horace hadn't even said anything when he stormed into the security office half an hour late. In general, everyone was sure to keep their distance except for Radzinsky who had walked right up to him, berating him as to why he hadn't gotten around to upgrading security measures and manned surveillance around the Swan work site. The god damn son of a bitch thought he owned the place and all Sawyer could do, short of knocking the living shit out of the man and getting them all thrown out of the Dharma Initiative, was clench his fists.

Thankfully, Horace had shrugged off the man's irritation as a part of adjusting to life with the Dharma Initiative. He had seen it before and suggested that James do the perimeter checks himself, asserting the fresh air would do him some good.

Sawyer slammed the driver side door to the sad little Dharma van shut, its hinges whining in protest. He stalked off along the makeshift road that lead to the Swan work site. He could hear drilling, even though he couldn't see anything through the jungle canopy, stave for the seemingly out of place mud holes where cranes and other bits of industrial equipment had been carted in. Throw in some dinosaurs and these yahoos could be building god damn _Jurassic Park_ he thought wryly and toggled the input button on his radio.

"LaFleur, entering grid 334," he said after he had raised the device to his lips.

"Howdy, LaFleur. You been to the Motor Pool yet? The new tech is hot!" Miles responded in a cheeky tone. Teasing was easy now that he was a comfortable distance away.

"Shut it, Bonsai." He growled into the radio.

The static died off for several long minutes.

"Okie-dokie. 10-4." Came Miles' chipper response. He didn't dare push his luck too much, the man could still hurt him when he came back.

"Fresh air my ass." Sawyer spat, citing Horace's earlier assertion, and was somehow bothered that Miles and Jin seemed to be adjusting into their new life just fine.

The high pitched wail of the drills exacerbated his already throbbing headache so he left his van where it was, shouldered a rifle onto his back, and widened his patrol into grid 333.

James had completed grids 329-331 earlier that morning and he resolved himself to stay out until the shifts had changed and he wouldn't have to deal with regulars in the security office. His thoughts drifted to Juliet, a topic that seemed to really get him hot and bothered lately. She'd worry if he stayed out too late...he cringed, since when did he care what she thought of him...since when did he care what _anyone_ thought of him?

Over the next few hours the sky had darkened from pale blue, to light gold, to rose. He had scarcely been paying attention to the direction he was walking until a shrilled beeping sound lured him from his thoughts.

Sawyer glanced down.

"Shit," he cursed, eyeing his radio warily. The batteries were dead and his sets of spares were in the van which he left on the road to the Swan worksite.

He kicked the ground grudgingly, scaring off a finch which was foraging close by. He raised his head, following the bird until it drifted out of sight.

The part of the jungle he had wandered into was unfamiliar, the Others territory for sure. Now Juliet really would worry, a thought that unsettled him at best. He trudged forward in the direction he thought he had come. He had never been one for the woods. He had never been in boy scouts, or had a daddy to take him camping, his uncle had tried to teach him to fish, but that was at his aunt's insistence in an attempt to get him out of the house after his parents were killed. He saw it more as an attempt to fill the big empty part of him that was left. Maybe if he had been more willing he would have learned how to read the forest, to understand how to track, and navigate, and spot the warning signs animals emitted when they were feeling threatened.

In retrospect he had heard the hissing, but his mind had brushed it off as a side effect of whatever was playing bongos inside his skull. He barely noticed the streak of reptilian skin until he had trodden over it and it was too late. The strike was too fast to really comprehend. All he felt was a bolt of red hot pain shooting up the shaft of his ankle. It was enough for him to spit out some undistinguishable explicative before he dropped.

Juliet's face flooded into his vision, a slow hesitant smile that he was rarely able to tease out of her. He could hear the ocean, smell it even as the memory invaded his thoughts.

"You'll be fine." She assured him.

"Maybe... but who's gonna get my back?" He had no control of the words that were spilling over his own lips, his tongue formed them and they just hovered in the thin, salty air surrounding his ears. "Come on. Just give me two weeks, that's all I'm asking. Two weeks."

Her gaze seemed to settle on his, impossibly watery, blue eyes. She seemed surprised by the sincerity in his tone― so did he.

"All right. Two weeks." Juliet let out the sigh she was holding and he could see the faintest hint of a smile...then blackness.

Somewhere in the shadows of the underbrush, a lone figure crept toward him.

* * *

When he did wake up it wasn't completely. He was so tired and something kept nagging at him, pressing water to his lips, urging him to drink.

"Kn...Knock it off...Bl...Blondie..."James stuttered, his adam's apple quivering in his throat as he tried to talk.

"No work t...today. God damn co...couch is to...to lumpy." He shifted and turned his head up so that the neck of the water bottle pressed into his cheek, the plastic rivets digging at his skin.

"Gotta get some shut eye now...s...stupid Miles thinks your Dharma uniform looks hot...me...too..." he continued to mutter, alternating between semi-audible and garbled sounds.

The stranger sat back and regarded him with an air of curiosity.

The next time he woke up he was shivering uncontrollably. He lay with his eyes open, staring up at what appeared to be rock, like a hollow, or the ceiling of a cave. He had been nowhere near any caves and he certainly didn't remember stumbling into one. Tongues of light danced overhead, and he froze, he definitely did not build a fire.

The realization that he wasn't alone hit him like a lead weight. Richard had warned that if he had managed to get him himself caught in their territory again there would be scarce anyone could do to get him out.

Something shifted in the darkness, disturbing the light pattern on the slate wall. Whatever it was, it was close, near his feet. Sawyer held his eyes closed for a minute, not sure if he would like what he saw when he opened them.

He froze, feeling a hand brush against him, fiddling with something on his ankle. He took a chance and refocused his gaze, fear and curiosity bolstering over everything else. There was a boy, well a man really, but just barely, tending to his leg. His hair was light, and his jaw set in a determined fashion as he worked. James could see the bandages now, not real bandages but tattered strips of cloth.

"Who are you?" He asked suspiciously, his eyes darted to take in the details of the cave.

The man looked at him for a moment, but seemed to lose interest and went back to ignoring him.

"Hey, Pontiac, I'm talkn' to you." Damn his throat felt bad. He wriggled, trying to get a better look at the man, causing him to erupt in annoyance.

"Look, how about you just concentrate on staying still?" The stranger huffed as he started to peel off the layers of cloth around Sawyer's ankle.

He stood up and retrieved a coconut shell containing something foul smelling which he started to slather over the wound. It was red and very swollen. He frowned down at it.

"Hey, that hurts!" Sawyer hissed, quickly drawing his leg in toward his body. Unwisely he hopped up on his good leg; the motion only agitated the injury.

"Son of a bitch!" It came out as more of a wheeze; the pain was starting to take his breath away.

"You should sit down," the stranger told him calmly.

Sawyer rounded on him and sneered. "Uh ah, Chief. Not until you tell me where I am and who the hell you are."

He took a tentative step forward and took a more detailed look around the cave. It had obviously been lived in for quite some time. There were various animal carcasses hanging from the entrance and he was standing in pile of dried palm leaves that served as bedding.

"How long have I been here?" He tried a different tactic and hobbled into the firelight on his one good leg. The stranger backed away, seeming wary of answering any of the man's questions.

From the narrow wedges of light carved by the fire he could see there was more to this place than he originally thought. The few possessions the man owned were strewn in a neat pile against the wall of the cave. A tattered book lay open next to a rucksack which appeared equally grim and caked with mud. He shuffled further, squinting at a photograph loosely fixed to the open page. He stared at it and suddenly erupted in a fit of rage.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?" James charged the man.

The burst of adrenaline coursing through him broke through the sleepy haze subduing his mind. He didn't even feel his injured leg as his fist connected with the stranger's cheek.

"You want some more you son of a bitch?" He hollered and rounded for another swing. He heard the man grunt underneath him. Though he did not manage a third, the stranger bucked and threw him off, sending him sprawling across the cave floor.

Sawyer growled and motioned to pick himself up when a hand connected firmly with the side of his neck, plunging him into a swift unconsciousness. His last lucid thought was of the dusty photograph of Kate, beaming back at him with her freckles dancing in the sunlight.

* * *

It had been Miles who had found him, stretched across the back seat of his van on the dusty makeshift road to the Swan worksite. He glanced down at the man, first curious, then relived. Horace had ordered a full perimeter wide search once LaFleur had failed to respond to all radio communication and here the man had just gone off grid for a nap. He wanted to be angry, but he knew the stress the guy had been under lately maybe a little time to himself was what he needed to keep him from driving them all around the bend.

Miles hesitantly prodded the man's shoulder in an attempt to shake him awake. His Dharma jumpsuit had been removed and wadded up under his head to serve as a pillow leaving him clad in a dark blue t-shirt and his boxer shorts.

Damn LaFleur was going to kill him for waking him up. He grimaced and prodded harder. "LaFleur...LaFluer..."

Miles' hand brushed against the nape of the other man's neck and he froze, carefully lifting it so that it brushed against his forehead. He drew back in surprise.

He grabbed for his radio.

"I've found LaFleur in grid 334. He's burning up. Over."

* * *

"W...where is...sh...she?" His words were slow and garbled with sleep as he stretched to avoid the sunbeams pooling in the crook of his neck.

"James?" Someone called to him. The voice was muffled and hollow like an echo far off in the distance. He grunted, attempting to latch onto the sound with every strand of consciousness he had. Whatever he had been dreaming about was fading fast, wisps of smoke that left his mind pleasantly empty and subdued in the cool darkness. It hadn't been good, but the feeling of dread boiling his insides only lasted a moment until it too became vapour, replaced by a warm, tingling sensation that trickled down every muscle to every single ounce of connective tissue in his body. He let out a happy heartfelt sigh and tried to allow himself sink back again, trying desperately to reclaim that place.

"Hey, I need you to wake up now." That voice again. He floated up a few layers because it was almost clear, dragging him away from the warmth.

"You gonna make it worth my while?" His lips instinctively curled to form a slow smile into the creases of his pillow.

"Open your eyes, James."

He did so, reluctantly. Juliet let out a sigh of relief.

"It's too damn bright and too damn early," he grumbled, but the sound was hoarse and it masked the southern after-tones in his voice. He sounded flat, and far too tired.

"It's five o'clock in the afternoon," she told him gingerly.

That seemed to rouse him a bit and he lifted his head off the pillow in a slow, laboured motion.

Juliet watched the surge of emotions flicker across his face; exhaustion mixed with confusion and maybe even fear.

"I was in a cave," he muttered, desperately trying to pull himself from the dregs of sleep.

"Kate was there."

"Kate was where?" She asked patiently, suppressing the urge to back away.

In the cave? No, that wasn't quite right. He looked around, dull-eyed. The room was familiar but unrecognizable.

"Where am I?"

She hesitated, it didn't seem right to call it _her_ room. This entire house wasn't her anything.

"The bedroom," she replied finally. "By rights you should be in the infirmary but an electrical surge blew the power. All the electrical guys are out rewiring the Flame, so we brought you here."

He issued her a blank look.

"You don't remember do you?" Her eyes flickered to the mound of blankets concealing the lower half of his body. She didn't give him time to answer.

"You were bitten by a snake. Miles found you last night in your van by the Swan worksite so it must have happened while you were out on patrol. Dr. Newhart thinks it was some kind of viper. Your ankle is a little swollen but it is healing nicely so he figures it must have been a dry bite. He gave you a shot of antivenin just in case."

"Son of a bitch," he cursed, but the force wasn't there to back it up.

"You were lucky, you know."

"That why it feels like a damn monkey is playing bongos in my head?"

She watched him rub the bridge of his nose irritably. No, it wasn't really much of a bite; the antivenin should have taken care of any neurological effects.

"Maybe," she agreed, reaching her hand out to rest over the top of his forehead. "Did you have a headache when you woke up this morning?"

He squirmed away from her touch, making a face. "Yer hands smell like WD-40."

"So when did this start?" She brushed off the comment and quickly switched to her clinical tone.

He ignored her.

"James!" Juliet glowered down at him.

He yelped, she was too damn close to his ears and he gave her a lethal look.

Juliet was immune.

"Don't ya have anything better to do?" He swallowed and then grimaced as his words stuck together, his original grogginess now thickly veiled with irritation. He just wanted to sleep.

"Throat feels like it's on fire." He finally admitted.

"Yeah? You gonna let me take a look inside than?" She countered smoothly, tapping her fingers on the unoccupied pillow that was resting under her arm. He yanked it back with all the strength he had and let out a low groan. Everything ached.

"I thought you were retired," he said hoarsely.

"For you, I'll make an exception." She called over her shoulder as she fetched a flashlight from the junk drawer in the kitchen.

"Oh goodie...mumph!"

He blinked and she was hovering over him again, a spoon roughly jammed across his tongue while her hand gripped his jaw. She peered inside, listening to him rasp as he attempted to breathe through his nose.

"Damn, could ya be a little gentler with that, Sugar?" He huffed after she had finished. "I'd like to keep my damn jaw."

Her hands dipped lower, brushing against the ruff stubble along his throat that he had let grow just a little too long. Hearing him whimper she added a second hand as she massaged the glands with her thumbs, the rest of her fingers splayed into his shoulder muscles. Their eyes locked and she quickly withdrew as though she had been burned. He must not have been feeling well for him to let the action go without comment.

"It's not strep, but the lining does look a little sore," she quickly covered.

"Don't tell me how sore it is, Sweetheart, it's _my _throat" He told her, shivering under her ministrations.

"You have the flu, James." Juliet shook her head. "It's probably why you had so much trouble waking up yesterday, Phil had it last week."

"I don't get sick," he huffed like a stubborn child.

"It's not gonna kill you," she assured him, but her words certainly didn't make him feel any better.

He rose up, starting to say something but winced, closing his lips tightly to swallow back the mucus that was pooling in the back of his mouth.

"Says you," he moaned.

She snorted softly and he brought his arm across his face to cover his eyes. The motion accomplished two things; it blocked out the light which felt like it was going to burn straight through to his brain, and it prevented him from having to see the amused, semi-smug grin that threatened to stretch past her cheeks.

"Trust you to piss off every reptile and microorganism within a five mile radius." She shook her head.

He glared at her.

"You could try wearing your glasses every once in a while," she suggested, relenting. "It might help with your headache."

"It's not the same type, damn it!" He erupted, sounding hoarse and exasperated. It was clear he didn't seem to want anything else to do with her so she settled into sorting the last of the laundry and preparing a light meal of chicken and rice that she doubted he would eat.

* * *

He had slept another two hours before she knelt down to turn on the lamp beside the bed. Its low, muted light gave him an eerie pallor. She noticed he was on his stomach, breathing hard, labouring almost. It was like he couldn't get enough air, but the way he had arranged himself, face first into the pillows with the covers tucked up around his ears, certainly didn't help.

"James." She sighed, nudging him gently with the heel of her foot. He should have shoved her away or at least issued a pissed off groan, but he remained a solid lump in the center of the bed.

Her hands found his shoulders and probed up over his face and neck where she withdrew them swiftly. The heat radiating from him was enough to make her skin clam up. Juliet bit her lip. His fever had spiked.

She instinctively stripped him of all the bed sheets and leaned to examine the puffy wound on his ankle. It looked better than it had yesterday still angry red and deep, but not infectious.

"You're really not having much luck today, are you?" She remarked more to herself than to him.

The Dharma, equivalent to Tylenol was in the oak cabinet over the fridge. She groped around for it in the dull, wavering lamplight, too focused to turn on the overheads.  
_  
_Acetaminophen, Juliet examined it, pulling the bottle out of a battered looking first-aid kit she had discovered while cleaning. She rifled through band-aids, strips of gauze, pressure bandages, and even a tampon or two until she found a generic oral thermometer at the bottom of the case. It had to be at least ten years old, but was certainly better than nothing.

"You gonna wake up for me?" She asked as she returned to find him still curled of in a ball in the center of the bed, facing away from her. He had drawn his knees as close to his chest as he could get them to try and compensate for his loss of blankets.

She sat on the edge of the mattress and gave him a sympathetic look.

"James, you're burning up." Juliet pressed her hands against his shoulders, manoeuvring him against her chest so that she could support him. He whimpered and she gently stroked his damp, sweat drenched hair. What was she doing? She blocked it out and she focused on what felt right. They had to have each other's backs, she had to get him better. The dirty blonde locks curled into her fingers as she raked her knuckles across his scalp. He unconsciously nuzzled into her touch, seeking the cool relief her skin brought to his body even though he was shivering.

The nerves do not distinguish between hot and cold. He was in the throes of fever and he might as well be standing naked in a snowstorm.

Juliet stroked his cheek until she could get his mouth open enough to wedge the thermometer inside. He almost bit down on it twice and she had to distract him by pinching his neck and squeezing his wrist a little too hard to direct his attention.

103.6 she frowned. No wonder he thought he was cold.

"Come on, you just need to swallow these, they'll help you." Her mouth was near his ear as she coaxed him along in a string of soothing whispers. She slid the pills between his lips, pouring enough water into his mouth to make him sputter and spit the tablets out onto his bare chest. She followed the dribble of water down the long contours of his stomach.

A sense of something Juliet could not place bubbled inside of her, whatever it was, she shook it off and concentrated only on him in the way a doctor would a patient.

"Alright, let's try again." Juliet scooped the tablets up and poised herself, reaching for the glass of water she had set on the bedside table, amazed that he could be this stubborn even in sleep.

"You'll feel better. I need you to help me with this. I need you to get better. We have to have each other's backs remember?" She shook him a little harder to wake him up only to hear a soft, pain-filled moan.

"What could possibly make us even for the Tampa job?" He grunted against the glass pressed to his lips, his breath hot enough to fog the inside.

"James?" She winced, jerking her neck up so fast that it hurt.

"He's a son of a bitch. I'm not going to rat you out." He said without opening his eyes. "You just..." he faltered, breathing something that was so weighted with fever, or sleep, or both, that she had to strain to understand. "Y...ou ...just need to work on your damn... sss...sales pitch."

His words seemed less distinguishable when she stroked his jaw, encouraging the lax muscles that resided there to tense up enough to pull it open. She needed to get the pills on his tongue and down his throat. He started to say something else and she flooded his mouth with water, tilting his head back until she was sure he had swallowed.

"Good," she coaxed as she allowed her right hand to settle across his forehead. Juliet was close enough to hear his teeth chattering. She set him back against the pillows long enough to moisten a wash cloth and drape it over his forehead. He easily swat it away so she resolved to running it down his back, watching him arch away from her ministrations as she mopped his bone-dry skin.

By 9:00 PM she had given in and was standing at the foot of the bed with Miles and Jin on either side of her.

"Man, LaFleur looks awful." Miles commented dryly as he stared down at the trembling man. "I mean he`s completely out of it. Worse than yesterday."

"Maybe we should get the Dharma doctor?" Jin confirmed.

Juliet shook her head. "This isn't from the bite. He wasn't quite himself yesterday morning. It's presenting like it's a bad flu."

"Wasn't Phil sick last week?" Jin asked.

Miles nodded. "Yeah, he fainted in the control room. LaFleur had to carry him to the infirmary."

"Where?" James wheezed, catching everyone's attention. "Where is it? Has to be at least worth 40 Mil if we can get the husband on board." He pushed himself up and Jin had to dive forward to keep him from tumbling over the side of the bed.

"He is too warm," Jin breathed between grit teeth as he struggled to keep the man from forcing his way up.

"I've got a letter for you... Dear Mr. Sawyer..." His eyes fluttered open, angry and fever-bright.

"Just take it easy. It isn't real." She automatically leaned in over Jin to stroke his cheek, not noticing the raised eyebrows and looks being exchanged behind her back.

"How do you know Hibbs?" James looked straight past her, addressing the lamp on the bedside table by the dresser, growing more frustrated and struggling against Jin when it didn't respond.

"What the hell is he talking about," Miles huffed.

Juliet shook her head, waving it off. "He's delirious, or dreaming. Probably both. Listen," she continued, not liking how his body heat was starting seep through like a furnace. "Miles, I need you to go to the bathroom and fill up the tub with as cold water as you can run it. While its running go to the kitchen, there are two bags of ice in the freezer. Make some ice packs and dump the rest in water."

Miles frowned, but didn't question her, already heading for the doorway before she could turn to the Korean man.

"Jin, can you help me get him into the bathroom?"

"Of course," he nodded and steeled himself against the wooden headboard as he stood to keep Sawyer from wriggling away from his grasp.

Getting him down the hall and into the bathroom was harder than any of them expected. He sunk to the floor as soon as they had managed to get him off the bed, shrugging away from their grasp and taking a swing at plant that sat on a table near the entrance to the bedroom.

"You son of a bitch," he growled so menacingly that Jin let go of him causing him to put more weight on his injured ankle and cry out in agony. Miles appeared in front of them and helped Jin wrestle him the rest of the way down the hall and into the bathroom.

Getting him into the tub was another matter entirely.

"LaFleur is never going to forgive us for this." Miles looked down at the ice cubes floating in the water and then at LaFleur who was propped on the toilet seat between Jin and Juliet. He at least appeared still for the moment.

"His temperature has to come down." Juliet did her best to adopt a clinical tone but neither of the two men could miss the look of thinly veiled fear in her eyes.

"We'll do it on three," Miles asserted, bracing LaFleur's right side and shoulder with his hands. Jin mirrored his position on the left and in one swift motion they guided him into the tub and fought with him to stay there.

"YOU WANNA GO TO HELL? YOU WANNA GO TO HELL!" He raged, splashing and shouting so loudly that they were all sure the neighbours had heard and were expecting Horace to burst in at any moment with half the security team in tow.

"Whoa, man, it's okay." Miles croaked, nearly sliding on the slippery tile. Jin cursed something in Korean.

"That's good. Keep him there. He just needs to stay a little while," Juliet instructed, her voice wavering. Having to stand by and watch this was tearing away at her, she had to focus damn it.

"Easier said than done." Miles looked pale, but he did a good job masking his discomfort of seeing such a wild spirit as LaFleur being reduced to this.

"No. You killed my daddy." He pushed forward, but strong hands held him down, drowning him in ice and making him cry out.

In his head he was reeling, tears sliding from his cheeks, catching on his chin as he yanked on the chain, wrapping them around Cooper's throat, watching the life drain out of him.

"No. You killed my daddy."

All the coloured drained from Juliet's face. She knew that nightmare all too well. He had had it at least five times since they had started living together. His body was tense and he would never let her anywhere near him when he woke up on the couch with her bending over him. She didn't know if it was because he was embarrassed or he just couldn't tollerate the human contact afterward. She had her problems, he had his, they left it at that and he was thankful for it, but for Miles and Jin to have to see him in this state, broke her heart. He was shaking like a leaf; she could see the tremor in his muscles, the terror in his eyes as she moved closer, needing to be near him, but dreading it in the same instant.

All he could see was gray. The gray of the chains, of the concrete, of the man's skin...

_"You took my parents away. You took my parents away. You killed them, Mr. Sawyer."_ The little boy inside of him kept whispering.

"Shhh...it's okay. You're going to be okay. It's not real, James."

No, it was real.

He let out a reproachful sob as more ice was packed on top of his thighs. It burned instead of soothed because maybe he was the one going to hell. He was no better than the men whose lives he had took...Duckett, Cooper, all the others he had scammed. How many little boy's daddys had killed their mamas and turned the gun on themselves because he stole their money all away?

How many more 'Mr. Sawyers' had he created because of it?

"Come on James, you have to work with me...you're burning up." Juliet tried her best to break through the fog surrounding him.

"Chin up, LaFleur." Miles voice joined her. "You can beat the hell out of this thing."

"You can do it," Jin piped in from the background.

"I just n...need...you to...l...leave...me a...lone." They caught him in one of his more lucid moments.

"It's okay. You have a high fever; we're trying to help you." He wasn't sure who was talking to him but he prayed they would put his pants back on soon; his legs were red with cold.

"Pack his boxers too," Juliet instructed.

"Not exactly my idea of a hot date, LaFleur." Miles tried to joke as he reached under the water to pluck at the elastic waistband, shit it was cold.

_Why were they doing this to him?_

Not only had they taken the only warmth he had, they were sliding something wet and slippery under his armpits. He arched, squirming to get away from it only to feel something even worse happening between his legs. Ice and a hell of a lot of it. Both the men grimaced at the idea, but Juliet continued to hand them the ice packs to pack his core regions with.

"Are you sure that's..." Miles didn't know how to finish which was just as well as Juliet cut him off with a glare.

No matter how much James tried to squirm away the intensity of the cold ripped through him, right up to his belly. He gripped the waistband of his boxers to try and remove the offending objects from his thighs but his fingers felt like wood and were easily pried away.

"Plea..se...No!" He tried to buck but strong arms held him firmly.

"Hey...shhh..." Juliet crawled up to where his head was resting on Jin's shoulder. "It's just for a few minutes James, just until the fever comes down." She gripped his hand and squeezed it as tightly as possible. Her thumbs brushed against his knuckles, pinning both arms on his stomach until she was sure he wasn't going to tear at the ice packs cooling his ranging temperature.

"I know, I know." She heard him utter a small whimper, somehow amazed that the man who had been so stubborn and so strong these past few months could be reduced to this so easily. It happened to the best of them.

"Alright," Juliet relented, ten minutes later. "Let's get him back to bed and get some more acetaminophen into him."

"He seems calmer now," Jin observed, unable to hide the pity in his voce. "Still restless, but..." he paused trying to think of the word he was looking for. "Better," he decided on after a moment of deliberation.

Juliet fetched him a dry pair of boxers which Jin helped him into while Miles held him up. They towelled him off and walked him back to the bedroom, with minimal trouble, where Juliet replaced the soggy bandage on his ankle with a clean dressing.

She moved to fetch the bottle of pills and stopped part way through the motion to feign off a wave of dizziness.

"You're practically asleep on your feet," Miles stated, but there was no jeer in his voice. He gently took the bottle from her and pointed to the unoccupied side of the bed.

"Sit down for a bit," he told her.

She shook her head defiantly, "No, he needs..."

"A doctor who is well rested so that she can nurse his sorry ass back to health." He finished for her. "You've probably been up fretting over him since I brought him back last night. We got this, now sit down and chill for a bit."

Juliet frowned, but did as she was told, though sat rigidly so that she could supervise what they were doing to the thrashing patient beside her. "He needs the antibiotics Dr. Newhart prescribed too, there on the table," she pointed.

Miles grabbed them. "Two, right?"

She nodded. "And two of the acetaminophen."

Jin walked over and wordlessly propped a large pillow up against the head board. He eyed her expectantly.

"You look uncomfortable," he explained when she continued to act as though she hadn't noticed it. Eventually, she relented and settled back against it.

Jin did the same thing for Sawyer who groaned when they moved him so that he was semi-sitting. It was easier to get at him that way.

"Okay, LaFleur, open of for the choo choo," Miles said brightly, balancing one of the red and yellow capsules between his thumb and his index finger. He managed to get a laugh out of Juliet and surprisingly, the fevered man opened his mouth.

"He's gonna kill you for that, "she told him tiredly.

Miles just snorted. "Maybe, but you're gonna be loooong dead for trying to freeze his balls off."

Even Jin quirked a grin. His English really was getting better. On second thought, she really didn't want to know all the colourful words she was sure James had taught him.

She must have dozed off because when she woke up there was a woolly blanket covering her legs and Miles was sitting on a chair next to James's head. Jin was nowhere in sight.

She rubbed her eyes and glanced over at James. The harsh lines that normally haunted his face were smoothed into a calmness which accompanied a peaceful sleep. He was still, covered with one of the light cotton bed sheets that one of them must have found in the linen closet as she knew it did not match the ones she had dressed the bed in. He seemed totally at ease within himself, snoring to the tune of Miles's voice.

She blinked, and listened...

"Fiver made no reply and Hazel paused in perplexity. From below, Bigwig was just audible."And you, Acorn, you dog-eared, dung-faced disgrace to a gamekeeper's gibbet, if I only had time to tell you—" The moon sailed free of the cloud and lit the heather more brightly, but neither Hazel nor Fiver moved from the top of the bank. Fiver was looking far out beyond the' edge of the..."

Miles stopped abruptly, looking over at her with a hard expression. "You breathe a word of this to LaFleur and I'll..."

Juliet shook her head, interjecting him. "How did you get him calm?"

The man shrugged and waggled the ragged copy of Watership Down in front of her eyes. "He's a book nut and nothing else seemed to be working. He kept trying to get up. It was Jin's idea." He rolled his eyes and snickered.

"Who would have thought LaFleur liked bedtime stories?"

The man in question shifted irritably on the bed.

Miles sighed and settled back in the chair. "You owe me big time, man." He grumbled half-heartedly as he eased back into a steady rhythm.

"Four miles away, along the southern skyline, rose the seven-hundred-and-fifty-foot ridge of the downs. On the highest point, the beech trees of Cotting-ton's Clump were moving in a stronger wind than that which blew across the heather. "Look!" said Fiver suddenly. "That's the place for us, Hazel. High, lonely hills, where the wind and the sound carry and the ground's as dry as straw in a barn. That's where we ought to be. That's where we have to get to..."

James heard sounds, not words, comforting syllables that shepherded him away from the cold. The exhaustion engulfing his body seemed to carry him past some imaginary barrier that the cold couldn't get through. He welcomed the darkness that dulled his mind into a blissful state of relaxation. It was so easy to let go and let that voice carry him away.

The steady flow of sound seemed to have a similar effect on Juliet. She closed her eyes, just for one fleeting moment, and was instantly trapped in the vast, healing grips of deep sleep. She didn't even notice James gripping her hand, holding on to her as if she was his last lifeline in the world.

* * *

James was in a place he didn't quite recognize right away. He was freezing cold and his breathing was labored enough to make his chest ache from exertion. He felt like he had run a god damn marathon. Something sinister was stirring inside of him, a prickly sensation that erupted into full blown pain as the landscape unfolded around him. It was like he hadn't seen it or rather, noticed it straight away. Everything was dark enough that he could only see abstract shadows and the air was damp and thick smelling making it even harder to keep his breath. He bent double, gasping, filling his lungs with as much of the heavy air as he could. Two, three, four, five breaths, he coughed choking on the stuff. It seemed to swirl around him in a thick haze that made his nose and mouth burn. It wasn't air he was breathing at all, it was smoke. His eyes widened, as the full expanse of the cave flickered into light.

"You're not really going to leave without her are you?" Something echoed in the shadows. The timber of the voice was amazingly soft even over the crackle of the flames. James turned towards it, squinting into absolute nothingness.

"Who the hell are'ya?" He called, barely hearing his voice over the sound of his own heartbeat which skidded against his ribcage. What he did hear sounded tinny and inconsequential.

"That's for you to figure out, James." The voice returned evenly, but not entirely unpleasant. He started toward it, away from the sweltering heat surrounding him. He steeled himself against the relentless onslaught needing to run away until his body refused to move anymore, the howling wind buffeting him in all directions, fanning the flames.

His ankle collapsed from under him and he fell forward on the stone floor breaking his fall with his knees and then his stomach. He crawled forward like a madman as the hissing and sputtering of fire seemed to resonate from the walls around him, enveloping him in a cocoon of heat and flame. He howled, clawing at the rocks to get away, fear was overriding every other thought, he just had to get away. He had to get out.

"You won't be able to leave without me James, I caused this and only I can end it." The sound was stern and it made him scrabble faster.

"Just let me out." He screamed, his heart was pounding in a sickening rhythm that he couldn't keep up with as it threatened to dive straight out of his chest.

Something flashed in his mind with unfathomable intensity, it drove the little bit of breath he had left straight out of him. He was just inches from a muddy notebook dead in the center of the inferno. His eyes focused in on it and he roared in desperation, "KATE!"

The cave lit up consuming him in a burst of light and overwhelming heat. Then nothing.

"Hey…Hey! Come on, you're okay."

James blinked, finally opening his eyes to the water-stained ceiling above him. He let out a slow breath and groaned slightly as he rolled onto his side, his blurry vision honing in on something that made his heart skip a beat.

"Juliet?" It came out as more of a muffled croak. He raised his head to look at her, half-reclined against the headboard and fighting a fitful sleep that she seemed to have unwillingly slipped into still fully clothed.

"I wouldn't get too excited there, Chief," someone chuckled.

He whipped around so fast that his neck kinked and he cursed in protest.

Miles sat in a chair that had been hauled up next to the front of the bed; he had tilted it on its two back legs with his arms behind his head and his feet propped up along the edge of the mattress for balance. He eyed LaFleur slyly. "Quite a night, eh?" He teased.

James continued to stare at him feeling drained and somehow very out of the loop. "What the hell are ya getn' on about, Donger?"

"What you don't remember the mind-blowing sex?"

The little colour that had started to return to LaFleur's face seemed to drain straight out of him.

Miles grinned and shook his head, relenting at the man's obvious discomfort. "How are you feeling?"

Juliet stirred before he could answer and upon seeing him awake, her hand automatically went to his forehead.

"Well, slow down there, Blondie," he drawled easily though his voice still sounded a little shaky.

Miles cleared his throat, feeling uneasy. "I guess I'll just leave you two love birds to it then," he announced.

Juliet rolled her eyes, but her expression remained mild. "Thank-you, Miles, and could you thank Jin for me?"

The dark haired man nodded as he unfolded himself from his chair, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that James didn't like one bit.

"Feel better, boss," he called over his shoulder.

"What the hell was that all about?" James turned to her as soon as he heard the front door click shut.

Juliet regarded him critically, taking in his disheveled appearance as she slid off the bed much to his disappointment. He forced back the urge to reach out to her and ask her to lie back down, but that would make him seem needy. Sawyer was not a cuddly sort of guy, but today, today his body just seemed to crave the comfort she would provide.

"You've had a high fever all night," she explained, fiddling with something on the bedside table. He watched her lazily out of the corner of his eye suddenly too tired to raise his head.

"You serious?" At least that explained why he felt like shit warmed over.

She nodded and handed him four pills and glass of water.

"So now yer drugn' me? Hell Blondie, if you want to have yer way with me that's fine, but ya don't need ta…"

"Take the pills James." Juliet issued him a stern, clinical look, like she would a misbehaving child.

He shrugged and popped them into his mouth, opening wide and sticking out his tongue at her for badness to show that he had swallowed.

She nodded vaguely and he breathed out with exaggerated patience as he watched her scoop a pile of bed sheets into her arms to carry out to the laundry room. She no longer seemed to notice he was even there. James watched her for a few seconds before he forced his body to stand up having as much control over his legs as a new born calf. He grunted from the exertion, but it seemed to have attracted Juliet's attention at least.

"James," she said evenly, her arms in a position to steady him if needed. "What are you doing out of bed?"

He glanced back at her, slightly glassy eyed.

"Given' you yer bed back."

"James," she scolded. "Lie back down, you're still sick."

He shook his head defiantly. "I'm gonna hop in the shower." When he caught sight of her stone-face expression he added, "don't worry, I ain't gonna fall and crack my skull open, but if ya wanted to join me…"

Juliet scowled at him, shaking her head. "You're impossible, you know that?"

"Yeah, yeah, Nurse Betty. You ain't so bad yourself." He smirked and hobbled off toward the bathroom on his good leg.

She found him half an hour later sprawled off across the couch in a clean pair of boxers and a gray t-shirt, snoring lightly, his deep breathing ruffling the book that rested open on his chest. His reading glasses had slid down the bridge of his nose and she leaned in to remove them from his face covering him with the wooly afghan that had tangled around his feet in the process.

"Don't go," he muttered, turning restlessly toward her. The motion caused his book slide down onto the couch cushion.

Juliet watched him, reaching down once again to feel his forehead, damp from his shower, but not overly warm.

"Don't leave me here," he continued to mutter through grit teeth. His face was rough from two days of not shaving and the set of his jaw made it look as though he was in pain.

"James," she sighed and pressed her hand against his shoulder to shake it. He thrashed his head in protest. "Gotta get out…don't leave."

"James," she persisted again, bringing him back to reality with sudden jolt.

"We gotta go back to the cave," he wheezed not quite catching her eye as he grappled to regain the breath he did not realize he had been holding.

"It's alright." She gave his shoulder one last pat for good measure. "You were dreaming."

Juliet watched him shutter and look at her with watery eyes. "No, he brought me there."

"You were out on patrol. Miles brought you back, remember? You have been running a temperature since yesterday, which can bring on some pretty strange dreams." She explained calmly.

He continued to let his eyes wander around the room, the truth of the situation becoming apparent the more he tried to dig up memories from his fever hazed mind.

He didn't answer her when she asked him if he wanted some soup, but Juliet went and fixed him some Dharma chicken noodle, more so to give him some time to sort out his thoughts.

"Ya don't have to keep taken' care of me like this ya know," he told her morosely when she returned with a bowl and a tall glass of ice water. His expression was wary like he no longer knew who he was and how to behave around her sudden doctoring streak. It had been a long time since anyone had bothered to do such a thing for him before.

She raised her eyebrows at him. "We're in 1974. Wasn't it you who said we have to have each other's backs?"

He snorted, not wanting to admit she had a point.

"Now eat your soup."

"Oh, then you gonna let me go out and play?" He chided.

She held up the water glass she was still brandishing in her right hand.

"Okay, okay." He huffed and gingerly sat up so that he could balance the bowl on his lap. "You drive a hard bargain, Sunshine."

Juliet sat on the other end of the couch and watched him take a couple of spoonfuls for the sake of entertaining her. He glanced up from pushing his noodles around the bowl to look at her.

"You just gonna sit there and watch me eat?"

No response. He blinked and waited for her to at least say something.

"Hey, space case, I'm talkn' ta you."

She issued him a startled sideways glance and he could see the exhaustion weighing down her features. It had been there all along and he cursed himself for not cluing in sooner.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" He asked softly, dreading he already knew the answer.

"For a couple of hours I think," Juliet admitted. Maybe it was just exhaustion that caused her to flinch when his spoon clattered too loudly against the side of his bowl as he set it down on the coffee table, but she did and she could hear him huff loudly in response as he stood up and disappeared from the room. The next thing she knew he was standing over her with his arms crossed as if waiting for something.

"Come on, up." He insisted as if he was trying to coax some type of animal.

She watched him for a second, attempting to read his actions. Her eyes started to flutter heavily and that was enough for her to lose whatever game they were playing for the next thing she knew he had bent down and scooped her up into his arms in one swift motion.

"James, what are you? Put me down," she demanded sleepily, but she wasn't able to put enough force behind it for him to actually take her seriously. He hobbled down the short hall and into her bedroom where he deposited her gently in the center of the bed, there were fresh sheets on it and the blankets already turned down.

"Like you said, we've gotta have each other's backs," he explained, leaning over her. She was so tired she could barely focus on him as he pulled the heavy covers up over her.

"James, no. You're sick." She protested through half-lidded eyes when he started to hobble out of the room.

"No need to go worrying about little ol'me, Blondie." He told her brightly when she sat up slightly to look at him.

She shook her head and pointed to the other side of the bed. "We can share til' you're better," she explained, her voice already slurred with sleep.

"Well ain't that the lamest excuse to get a man into bed that I've ever heard," he snorted. Never the less he gave in and limped across the room to where she had indicated.

"Do I at least get a goodnight kiss?"

A pillow hit him square in the jaw making him grunt.

"Goodnight James," Juliet told him firmly before rolling onto her side away from him.

"Night, Blondie," he whispered back after he climbed in under the covers and switched off the lamp on the bedside table. It had been a long time since he had climbed into bed with anyone for any purpose other than sex. Maybe having someone to lookout for wasn't so bad he thought drowsily before a deep healing sleep washed over him.

By Monday afternoon James was back to his healthy, irritating self. Miles, Jin, Horace, and Amy had all stopped by on several occasions to check in on him. He had slept a lot over the weekend, played a couple of games of poker with Jin and Miles, bet Juliet at Scrabble, and talked security protocols with Horace, who was increasingly apologetic for sending him out to patrol grid 334 alone.

By Tuesday he was back to work which consisted of long days with Jin and Phil in the security shack because he still had a bit of a limp and Horace wouldn't dare send him out on patrol.

Finally, on Thursday, Horace relented, partly because Jim actually was looking better and partly to keep the man from going absolutely stir-crazy.

At noon on Friday James found himself back on the outskirts of grid 334 hopelessly lost and agitated that he could not seem to find an identifying landmark of any sort to help him ascertain his location. He knew he had been in a cave, he knew there had been someone there with him and he had been plagued with dreams about it every night. He was determined to get to the bottom of it before he drove himself crazy, if he hadn't gone that far already.

He trudged onward, stopping only to take a leak and double check that he had spare batteries for his radio in the pocket of his jumpsuit. That last thing he needed was to get himself lost, _again_. He was pretty sure it would drive Juliet mad. The more he thought about it the stranger it was to have someone to worry about him. He shook off the feeling with an amused grin; Juliet still hadn't deemed him 'well' enough to resume his previous sleeping arrangements on the couch.

James wasn't sure at which point he was willing to admit that he was hopelessly lost. The sun had disappeared hours ago and was replaced by low-lying cloud cover that looked ominous in the pale afternoon light. The overarching jungle canopy seemed to prevent most of the light from penetrating the jungle floor. He found a stream and followed it until he reached a muddy slope that towered over a gloomy looking pond. He sat there for a while, resting his legs, breathing in the heavy tropical air enjoying the slightly salty taste as it tickled his tongue.

The wind seemed to pick up out of nowhere and he knew it was blowing up for rain. He could smell it. Maybe it was time to head back to the van, well, the general direction he though the van was in. Juliet would certainly be pissed at him if he damaged the damn thing. She had been working at the Motorpool barely a week and already she was acting like a god damn mother hen when it came to her precious hippy vans. This one needs an oil change, that one can't go out after dark because the headlights were busted. She'd almost decked Phil on Wednesday because he had managed to dent up the front bumper on van number 6. He was certain he would have paid money to see that.

Looking back, he was not sure if he felt something was off before he heard a guttural cry of fear followed by splashing and lots of it, Someone was down there he realized in the same instant that he launched himself into the back water below.

* * *

**Well that's it for now. Please let me know what you think, I promise that reviews will motivate me to update quickly.**

**Cheers!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Uncharted**

**Two: **Catalyst

The thought that he wasn't quite as recovered as he seemed to think flashed through his mind as he hit the water and felt his lungs threaten to burst from the share shock of the exercise. Panting, James kicked upward and gasped for air, shaking the matted clumps of hair out of his eyes with a grunt. It took him a few seconds to get his bearing, but once he did he whipped around in the direction of the splashing; the water that had leaked into his eyes and ears dulled his senses.

The sky had opened up and he was becoming drenched in all directions. He squinted through the rain, eyes narrowed as he propelled himself against the growing current; the wind was making the water choppy and hard to navigate. He swam until it felt like he was going to lose his breath kicking at something that brushed against his ankle. James took a chance and dove for it, his hand making contact with an arm. He pulled, dragging a ragged body from murky depths toward the shore with all the strength he had.

He collapsed to his knees, barely fighting the spams that made his throat quiver with exertion. The wet sand stuck to his hands as he tried to balance himself on his arms and spat out the muddy water trapped in the back of his throat. A winded groan caught his attention. The body beside him rose up, wheezing and sputtering as he heaved up what must have been his entire breakfast.

James gazed at the stranger with a wary sympathy which quickly turned to confusion when the man turned to address him.

"You again, huh?" He said tiredly, dragging his soggy shirt sleeve against his mouth to wipe it. The motion caused his fingers to tangle in his straggly blonde beard and he pulled at it with annoyance.

"What the hell do you mean me again?" James ground out, his eyes giving the man a once over. He looked rough around the edges even for one of Horace's hostiles.

The man shook his head and sighed. "We should get out of the rain," he muttered.

James gave him an incredulous look. "I ain't go'n nowhere with a hostile."

The stranger blinked. "A what?"

"Oh don't go playn' stupid with me, Scruffy, I can tell by the look of ya that you've been running 'round the jungle with Richard's boys, pissn' off the Dharma folk and whatever else yer people do. There sure as hell ain't anyone else out here on Craphole Island." He added that last part with an air of contempt and perhaps frustration. Their meager efforts to locate any of the other survivors seemed frivolous and foolhardy at best.

The man smiled a little and sat back up straight. He was winded and dripping wet, but at least the rain seemed to be letting up, morphing in a heavy mist that quenched the heavy island heat from his bones.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you." He said with an appreciative expression, his blue eyes flickering to the ground for a moment as he did his best to ignore the accusation.

James wouldn't have any part of it. "What kind of self-respecting Other can't swim anyway?" He chided. "Ain't swimming included in your hostile native lessons?"

"Must have missed that day," the stranger countered. _Good_, he thought._ He doesn't recognize me._ That was the last thing he needed, he was already in more of a mess than he could handle already.

He stood up slowly, feeling LaFleur's eyes taking him in from head to toe. He could tell he was breathing too fast, feeling shaky from the other man's scrutinizing gaze. He was easier to handle when he was half dead and feverish. At least the men in the jumpsuits had found him in time. He couldn't have taken the risk of keeping him in his cave any longer. It was too dangerous.

"You going somewhere, Hoss?" Damn he sounded formidable when he meant business.

James stepped forward to bar his way, half expecting half a dozen hostiles to pop out of the underbrush and ambush him at any second.

The 'hostile' fixed him a watery look. "How bout, you go back to your home and I'll go back to mine?" He offered sheepishly.

"Yeah?" LaFleur raised a skeptic eyebrow. "And what's there from keepn' yer jungle buddies from stopn' by to visit me on the way?"

"They left me to drown," the stranger stopped to consider for a moment, then he shrugged and started to turn his back. "So nothing at all I guess."

He disappeared before James could say or do anything else.

* * *

Horace was waiting for him when he pulled hippy van #8 back into the Motor Pool. The sun had sunk low on the horizon bathing the sky in bands of blood red light. James felt damp and sticky from his impromptu swim and his butt seemed to sag in the seat as he reached to turn off the engine.

"Yer out late tonight, Boss," he commented to the older man as he approached. Horace seemed restless, fiddling with the wire rims of his glasses distractedly. He finally set them back on his face and looked up with an expression so profound that James immediately took a step backward. He'd seen those tired, wary eyes before in the policeman who had coaxed him out from under that damn bed, in his uncle's eyes at his parent's funeral, in his own reflection as he pulled the trigger on an innocent man.

"What?" He croaked dropping the cool persona he had created in his role of Jim LaFleur. Just another god damn con.

"Jim," Horace let out the breath he had been suppressing. He shook his head, red hair flying up across his face, his mouth was open, but not a sound escaped his lips.

"I'm sorry…I…" Horace stopped; appalled by the effect he was having on the other man and forced himself to string together a decent sentence. "Juliet collapsed at work today…she isn't well."

"Where is she?" He ground out, his eyes widening. "What the hell happened?"

Horace led him in the direction of the infirmary, struggling to keep up with the pace LaFleur had set.

"We don't know. Davidson found her unconscious under one of the vans. She hasn't woken up yet. Amy's with her, and Miles, and Jin."

He wasn't listening anymore. He was in a haze, a deep swirling fog that made his body act on its own accord. They were on the front porch of the infirmary; Horace was standing in front of him and dangling something in front of his face, patiently waiting for him to focus.

"Jim, we have no idea what she has and you're still not one hundred percent yourself. You have to wear a mask. Just put it on, OK? Then you can see her."

He numbly took the offending object from Horace's hands and brushed past him, pressing the damn thing to his face in the process. Amy met him in the hallway leading to the main patient ward. In actual fact it was more of a triage station that consisted of two neat rows of cots with curtains strung up around them than an actual sick ward. She gave him a sympathetic look and ducked behind him to tie the strings of his mask so that he didn't have to hold it to his face.

"It's alright, she's this way," she said. Her own mask was lying half-tied and crumpled at the base of her neck. She led the way out of ward and down another corridor and through a door marked, 'NO ENTRANCE. ISOLATION WARD.' Inside the door, an ancient looking doctor was seated at desk staring through a battered Plexiglas window.

James vaguely recognized the man from the shotty first-aid videos they had been forced them to watch during their orientation. He made his way over to the window the doc had been looking through and his heart caught in his chest. He could just barely see her, illuminated by the pale wedges of lamp light that fell over her bed. She was motionless

"What's wrong with her?" He hissed anxiously.

Dr. Donald Grier blinked sleepily and wheeled around in his cheer.

"Pneumonia, I expect. Has she been around anyone ill recently?"

"Jim, had a pretty bad flu last week, she was taking care of him." Amy interjected for him.

Grier nodded. "I see, and you are her…" he paused awkwardly.

"Her…roommate." He spoke the words so forcefully that his lips curled.

"I see…have you had sexual intercourse with her lately?"

James glared daggers at the wrinkly old doctor. "No I did not have sex with her recently! What the hell does that have to do with her havn' pneumonia?" He balked.

The doctor ignored him. "Any other type of fluid transfer then? Kissing, oral sex…"

Amy winced and she could see Jim starting to flush with anger. She stepped in before he decided to strangle the man. "They don't have that kind of relationship. They are just friends." She offered.

The doctor shrugged and James at least seemed to take a breath though it was stuffy through the mask. Sighing, she took him by the elbow and opened the door to the inner room for him.

It wasn't really a room. There was only space enough for a bed and a narrow camp stool, not even a chair. He looked at Juliet. She was lying with her arms outside the bedclothes, her left arm connected to a drip which hung from a stanchion. Her eyes were closed and her face looked thin and drawn as if she had lost weight since he had last seen her this morning. Her pale skin had a greyish cast and if it wasn't for the slow rise and fall of her chest he would have thought the worst.

"Oh Juliet," he wheezed, the sound was even more muffled through the mask. He collapsed down onto the stool and leaned back against the wall, almost nudging a rusty looking oxygen tank from its stand near his knee. He numbly followed the lines leading from it to the bed where it wove in around Juliet's arm and then finally fanning out into a nasal cannula that pronged into her nose with the excess tubing tucked around her ears in the same way that glasses would.

He though grimly to how he had cursed at her that morning she had woken him up, how he had whined at her when she had tried to take care of him, and how she willingly shared her bed with him to make him feel more comfortable.

This was all his god damn fault. If she died it would be more innocent blood on his hands. James sank lower on the chair and cradled his head in his hands. "I'm sorry…so god damn sorry," he rasped breathing heavily as everything that had bubbled up inside of him tried to escape.

He reached over, blindly cupping her right hand as though it were porcelain and it might shatter at any moment. "You gotta stick with me, Blondie. Ya promised ya would." He muttered feeling her hand twitch, nails digging into him as her chest was seized by a deep, rattling cough

"Shhh..." he soothed hearing a tiny whimper escape from her throat. He thought he thought he saw her eyelids flutter, but he couldn't be certain. "You gotta rest now so we can bust ya out of this joint," he told her in the softest voice he could muster.

His words were so genuine that they could not have come from Sawyer, the hardened con artist. They were James' words and she seemed to be the only person in the world that could draw them out of him.

"Just think about it. You and me and one of yer damn hippy vans. We'll go visit the polar bears or something. Our own trip to Dharma zoo and after that, if you wanna get on the damn sub, well I'll go with ya. I got yer back, Blondie, but I need you to stay with me and have mine too okay?"

She didn't answer. He must have sat there for hours, holding her hand, sulking in his own guilt, just plain worrying as every breath she took appeared more shallow and painful than the last.

He was rambling to her and he knew it, uncharacteristically so, but fear does that kind of thing to people. It grips hold of you and makes you do a ton of crazy stuff that you don't normally do. At the time, James didn't realize that he was afraid; he was just in shock as though his mind and his body were separate entities. Time passed, seconds, minutes, hours, he didn't know. Grim faced medical staff came and went, prodding at her, he could barely stand it, and when he overheard the doctor telling the nurse that Juliet's lungs were filled with fluid and he didn't think she would make it through the week, he decked the man so hard that he had to have at least broken his nose from the force of the blow.

Miles and Jin must have been nearby, Horace too, for the next thing he knew all three of them were on top of him, pinning him to the floor of the outer observation room while someone drove a needle deep into his ass.

"Jim?" Horace knelt down, motioning for the others to back off. The nurse was crouched over Grier along with Dr. Newhart who had treated James several days previous for the snake bite.

"m'okay." He breathed as a smooth band of pain gripped his lower body; slow rhythmic pulses that stabbed him from the inside out. He bit down on his lip hard, feeling Jin and Horace try to ease him upward and out of the room. The movement sent him over the edge and suddenly he was retching violently. Thankfully someone had the good sense to get the mask off of him first.

Miles managed to avoid getting hit with the onslaught, but Jin and Horace were not as lucky as the mess splashed onto their shoes.

Jim's shoulders were shaking in a fit of heaves that left him pale and feeling faint. His fingers trembled as he was coaxed into stepping around the puddle and out into the main corridor.

"Just leave me alone." He half growled half whimpered. The world felt as though it was tilting and Horace's concerned face faded in and out of focus. The next thing he knew his jaw was against the tile. He was on his side with his legs sticking off at awkward angles.

"Whoa, that stuff is starting to hit him pretty fast." Horace had sunk down to the floor with him.

"Jin, could you get me a cold cloth?"

The Korean nodded worriedly, seeming not to even notice, or perhaps ignoring his soiled pant legs.

"You still with me, Jim?" Horace's voice resolved itself with enough clarity to ease the fog. He sounded like he was somewhere above him, his tone had a strange, dream-like quality about it.

Horace had stood to strip out of his jumpsuit leaving him in jeans and dark grey t-shirt. He kicked the heap away from them and knelt back down by his friend.

"Yeah," he mumbled, allowing the man to help him roll over onto his back. "Any reason why there are three of ya, H?" Whatever else he was trying to say spewed out as an incoherent mumble that morphed into a happy sigh as it left his lips. It hadn't taken long for the drug to envelope him in a wave of happiness that kept him pleasantly subdued. The relief he felt was almost instantaneous leaving him feeling so sluggish that he no longer cared where he was or what he was doing.

Jin came back, along with Dr. Newhart touting a medical bag.

"He's not having a good week is he?" The doctor sighed.

Horace shook his head. "How's Donald?"

Newhart grinned. "Broken nose, but it serves him right. You know what the man is like, Horace."

Horace did his best to suppress a small smile, but said nothing. Normally he would not condone such behavior from any of his Dharma members, but the circumstances were extenuating.

Dr. Newhart loosened the zipper running down Jim's jumpsuit and motioned to Horace to help him peel the man's arms out of the thing while Jin set a damp cloth against the back of his neck.

"I don't want him overheating. Something tells me by the mess down there that he hasn't had much in his stomach so he'll probably be a little sensitive to the sedative. We don't usually recommend them on an empty stomach. "

Horace nodded.

The doctor quickly turned to the blood seeping through the gash on his forehead.

"He hit his head when we tackled him," Jin muttered apologetically.

"Just a scratch, but I'm going to have to close it," Newhart said as he rifled through his kit.

James threw his head back in a mournful howl when the first dab of antiseptic hit and had to be held still while the doctor dropped the four sutures necessary to completely seal the cut.

"Doing good, doing good," Newhart mumbled, a syringe clenched in his teeth. The sight of it was enough to cause Jim to burst into a fit of giggles as he noticed the object edging toward him. He couldn't stop laughing, the doctor's hands on his shoulders, the needle. Everything felt so god damn funny. By the time he felt the sting of the injection he was almost in tears.

Horace glanced at the man worried and feeling very guilty about what had been done. He knew the man obviously cared for Juliet, but he was downright dangerous in this state of mind.

"Yeah, it'll do that to them sometimes." Newhart shrugged. "I was hoping he'd be out by now, but I gave him another quarter dose. That should knock him out good and proper for a few hours."

The drug didn't seem to have any effect. His head lolled as he tried to get Jin's attention, still grinning foolishly. "Hey, Jin-bo," he beamed and Jin crouched down next to Horace.

"He'll drift off in a minute. Just humor him," the doctor told the two men as he stood. "I'll go check on Juliet. We'll wait until he's fully out to move him."

"Juliet," James muttered shaking his head.

"She'll be okay, Jim," Horace assured as he rested his hand on the man's shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze.

"Gotta get out of the damn 70's." James muttered seemingly switching from happy to frustrated all in the same instant. "Jin-bo, gotta tell Juliet if she sticks with me I'll get her out of the damn 70's and back home. Hell we can take all of Dharmaville with us. H will get a kick outta eBay."

Horace blinked. "What's an eee-bay?

Jin grimaced. "Settle down, Jim."

"Name's…s…ss…Sawyer," the man growled.

"Just relax now," Horace told him, frowning slightly, but thankful when his glassy eyes dipped closed and he started to drift off.

* * *

There was something warm pressing against his arm; Horace could feel it as he struggled out of sleep. His head had lolled against the wall and he moved his hands to the back of his neck to rub the stiffness out of his tight muscles. A smaller set gently nudged his out of the way and settled on his shoulders, electing a grunt.

"Better?" the voice asked.

He groaned and opened his eyes. Amy grinned down at him.

"Guess I nodded off," he croaked.

"Yeah, I guess you did," she smiled and continued to ease out a knot that had coiled at the base of his neck. He drew in a sharp breath and sighed as he felt the pain release into tingling warmth.

"That feels good," he mumbled making her chuckle.

"I'll bet it does after the way you were sprawled out there," she teased. Horace straightened up in the chair he was lounging in as Amy shifted so she was standing in front of him.

"I wanted to be here with him when he wakes up," he explained, gesturing to the man on the cot next to his chair. James was flat on his back with his mouth partly agape. He was in a deep, heavy sleep that he couldn't be roused from easily. The drug he had been given appeared to have rendered his entire body limp and motionless.

"He's had a rough week," Amy agreed.

Horace shook his head. "It's been more than that, stranded in a strange place away from home and family, all of them really. They're holding up well, considering. How is Juliet doing?"

Amy shook her head. "That's why I woke you." She explained. "Brian wants to speak with you?"

Horace paled and stumbled to his feet, still feeling groggy. "Not good than huh?"

Amy didn't answer, she didn't need to. He could tell that the news wasn't good just by the way she held her eyes. "He's in isolation. I'll stay here with Jim," she offered.

He nodded and shuffled out of the main patient ward and down the narrow corridor to the isolation room. The entire hallway smelled of strong pine scented cleaner and the soil jumpsuit he had left on the floor was nowhere in sight.

Dr. Brian Newhart was sitting in the observation room outside the infirmary's only isolation room. He was noting something on a clipboard as Horace entered and he looked up, inclining his head toward the man.

"Hey, Horace," he greeted quietly, motioning him to sit down in a battered looking desk chair.

"How is she?" Horace did not waste any time greeting the man.

Newhart frowned. "She's not responding to the antibiotics we've been given her. Her oxygen sats are down and her fever is up. I've had to switch her to a non-rebreather."

"What does that…" Horace paused, unsure of how to continue.

The doctor seemed to understand what he was asking and dropped his head solemnly. "It means it's not a bacterial form of pneumonia. If LaFleur was sick with influenza last week and she was around him, well then it's most likely a virus. Antibiotics don't work against viruses."

"So we can have some more drugs sent in from the mainland," Horace suggested. "Money isn't an option, really, just get what you need."

Newhart shook his head and Horace could see how red the man's eyes were when he looked at him. "She has viral pneumonia." He explained, as if that cleared matters up. "There aren't any drugs."

"How do we help her then?" Horace asked sounding desperate as he pushed himself out of his chair and started to pace the small floor space between the hall and the door to Juliet's room.

"I'll arrange transport to the mainland immediately. The sub can be here in…"

Newhart cut him off. "She's not stable enough to make the trip," he told the man gently. "She'd never survive."

"So what do we do?" Horace erupted in an uncharacteristic manner, his hands flying into the air as he rounded on the doctor. Brian stood up and eyed the man.

"We treat her symptoms and hope to God that her body is strong enough to fight this off on its own," he replied sternly. "There's nothing else we can do."

Horace scowled and ran his hands across his face. He promised Jim that she would be alright, that they would take care of her.

"I'm going to have to restrict admittance to her room to the medical staff only. I can't risk anyone else catching this. I've already sent a nurse to check Davidson for symptoms. Everyone else who was near her was at least following minimum containment protocol so they should be ok."

Horace rubbed the bridge of his nose, still continuing to pace. "Should I restrict access to the infirmary?" The wariness in his tone was starting to show through.

"Not yet." Newhart leaned against the desk. "Not unless there are any other cases of this. Then we can look at a possible quarantine. But as for now, our main goal is making Juliet as comfortable as possible."

"I'll trust you'll do that, Brian," Horace managed weakly. His knees felt wobbly as he made his way back to where Amy and Jim were. Miles and Jin had dragged chairs over to the other side of Jim's cot and had enticed Amy into a game of crazy-eights to try and pass the time.

Horace slumped down on the adjacent cot and he could feel all of their eyes on him before he raised his head. The calm mood they had all settled into seemed to evaporate into an edgy silence as they all waited for him to speak.

"She isn't well," he admitted hoarsely. They already knew that. He drew a long breath before he continued, knowing full well that they expected him to be straight with them.

"Brian thinks she has viral pneumonia. There isn't any treatment for it and she's too sick to put on the sub so he's gonna do everything he can to keep her comfortable and we are all going to hope for the best."

"But…"Jin started.

Horace didn't have the guts to face any one of them so he closed his eyes as he continued to speak. "They're worried that it may be contagious so for everyone's sake Brian has asked that we restrict access to Juliet's room to only those staff who are taking care of her."

He didn't have to see their outraged expressions to know that they were there.

He kept his eyes closed through the long silence that followed. Nobody dared to move or say anything.

"It's for the best, really," his voice cracked a little and at that moment he doubted his own authority. Amy's hand covered his own as he fisted the sheet he was sitting on while she eased down beside him. Finally he caved and opened his red-rimmed eyes and stared at the tiles under his feet

"We're just gonna have to hope," he whispered again.

"Juliet's too stubborn to kick off on us," Miles agreed. "I mean she's gotta stick around to keep LaFleur in check."

"She does seem to be doing a good job of that," Horace forced a wary smile.

"She has even trained him to do the laundry," Jin added.

"And put the toilet seat down," Amy laughed a little.

Miles scoffed in disbelief. "That's messed up."

"Horace?" Amy shifted slightly to look at him. He was balancing his chin on top of his folded arms. She sighed.

He barely moved his head to look at her.

"Yeah?" he asked quietly.

She dipped her head in so her mouth was millimeters from his ear. "You should follow your own advice," she whispered as she rubbed small circles across the center of his back. "She's going to be OK."

* * *

James could tell he had a pounding headache before he even opened his eyes so he lay there in the silence, trying to run through his mind at which point he had decided to hit the Dharma whiskey. It had to be whiskey, scotch never made him feel his brain had been run over by one of the damn hippy vans. Damn it hurt, but he tried opening his eyes slowly, sensing something wasn't quite right. He shut them again immediately as the dim light sent a knife blade of pain slicing through skull. He groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, groping at his face in the process.

"Fuck," he hissed as the world around seemed to do something funky, tilting in such a way that made his head spin.

"You should lie back down."

"Who?" he choked out, his voice sounding creaky and weak to his own ears. He managed to roll his head to the side and crack one eye open before Jin could reply.

"You've slept a long time," Jin told him frankly.

James just grunted in response and took a few deep breaths as he moved his tongue around in his mouth experimentally. It was dry and felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton.

Jin leaned forward in his chair and angled it closer to the cot. Sawyer could barely see him stave for the cast of florescent light spilling in from the hallway.

"How long is long?" He groaned, sucking it up and struggling to a sitting position.

"Over a day." Jin told him and James did his best to focus on the man to take his mind off of how horrible he felt.

"Damn," he muttered, holding his head. "What the hell hit me?"

Jin blinked, not quite catching on to the rhetoric. "Horace, and Miles, and me," he supplied.

LaFleur shot him a bland look. "Wha?" he huffed.

"Horace and Miles and me knocked you to the ground and the doctor gave you a needle, then you…went to…sleep." he said matter-of-factly as if that explained everything.

"Ya drugged me?" He asked flatly.

"No. The doctor drugged you," Jin replied. "I only help knock you to the ground."

"Oh is that all?" He raised an eyebrow and managed to look sarcastic while doing it.

Jin seemed to consider the question. "Yes," he agreed finally with a little nod and Sawyer snorted.

"Well, would ya mind telling me why Dr. Tuskegee in there decided to give me a one way ticket to dreamland?" James found it increasingly difficult to raise his voice enough to really sound angry. In actual fact he really didn't feel all that pissed off, just sort of floaty and relaxed despite the god damn headache.

"Maybe you should sleep more," Jin suggested, dogging around the question when he noticed the man's eyelids sagging.

James made a little noise in his throat and attempted to glare at the man. "What's going on, Jin?" His voice still sounded a little shaky, but he managed to get his point across.

"You punched the doctor."

Sawyer squinted, trying to slow the pounding of his head. His lip curled as he started to brush off the accusation. "I didn't punch nobody!"

He scowled and Jin who watched him critically and in that instant the drug-addled haze he had slipped into started to clear.

"Juliet?" He wheezed, pressing his fingers to his temples.

Jin nodded. "She is the same."

"Oh good, Sleeping Beauty is up," Miles commented as he entered the room, unaware of their conversation, and walked toward LaFleur's cot.

"But…" he James to stammer, ignoring the man. "We gotta help her. H, will get her the hell outta this place right?"

Miles gave Jin a funny look and glanced at LaFleur. "Horace tried last night, but Newhart doesn't think it's a good idea. Says she's too sick to move."

"Well we gotta do something!" James erupted as he pushed himself out of bed. He swayed dangerously and Miles had to grab his arm to steady him.

"Easy, Boss."

"I gotta see her," he spoke in a faint, slurred way, working to control his rising frustration. The last thing he wanted was another shot of whatever the hell was in his system.

"Horace isn't even allowed in. They are worried she may be contagious," Miles explained.

LaFleur squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Where's H?" he asked, fighting to regain his composure.

"Amy took him home a few hours ago. He was here all last night and most of today."

"Then you two should have no problem bustn' me outta here." James took a deep breath; they were both looking at him as if here was still crazy. Maybe he was his body felt numb and ill adapted to completely come to terms with what was going on.

_Juliet was going to die._ He ran the thought through his mind…nothing. He tried harder to shake away the fog…_if he did not do something, Juliet was going to die_. His heart started to thud against the wall of his chest and he felt like he was going to be sick, but he reined in control of himself.

"Why?" Jin asked, sounding worried.

"I'm gonna have a chat with Richard," LaFleur told him sternly.

"You two got a problem with that?" he growled.

They both shook their heads. He could have asked them to help him hijack the damn submarine and those two probably would have done it. He stared ahead, lulling his emotions into a kind of suspended animation as Miles went to fetch him some suitable clothes. His mind drifted to his con-artist days and the rules he had built for himself, never ever get personally involved, he'd already broken that one once with Cassidy, but he had to count on it now to not let his emotions get the best of him. His mind had to be numb, he couldn't think about her laying lifeless and alone in that damn bed, it made him sick, stirring something inside him that he had never felt before.

He cared for her and he knew it.

* * *

He found himself back at that damn riverbank as dawn was breaking. The sky was a kaleidoscope of colours that seemed to reflect off of the murky water. He followed it to the pond he had pulled the damn Other out of, making as much noise as possible. Maybe Richard would honour the deed and help Juliet in return? It was a stupid plan and his life as Sawyer had taught him to never expect nothing from nobody. He could damn well get himself shot at any moment now and then where would Juliet be? She was making him crazy.

"Damn it, Richard. Where the hell are ya?" He shouted at the trees and kicked at the rocks under his feet. This was hopeless. James was left standing the jungle completely alone.

He should be used to it by now. He'd spent his entire life that way, he thought of his parents, Kate, and now Juliet. Everything he ever got close to was stolen away from him. He trudged on like a blind man, unseeing, and walking without purpose, his face a wash of agony.

He was so caught up in the emotional avalanche tumbling around in his head that he didn't even notice that he was being watched, not that he would have anyway, Kate had always said that he was a lousy tracker and she was probably right.

"Little early for a morning stroll isn't it?"

James' head shot up in the same instant he turned on his heels. The bearded stranger was staring back at him from his vantage point on a long flat rock near the water, appearing to have a fish in one hand. He blinked, fearing he was imagining the scene, but the image didn't resolve itself. Finally, he went for it and stepped a few paces closer, the hostile tensed, but didn't move from his position on the rock.

"I need you to take me to your leader." James dropped all pretenses.

The man looked up at him from the fish he had been cleaning, watching him with wary curiosity.

"I'm sorry?" he returned, unsure what exactly what was being asked.

"Cut the bull shit, Scruffy," James demanded and he sounded desperate. "I need to talk to Richard, now!"

He seemed to be confused by the outburst. "He isn't here," he said, feeling a little guilty for some strange reason. Whoever this Richard person was he wasn't there.

James didn't seem impressed with the answer.

"Well I need ya to go _get_ him for me," he retorted, keeping his voice even. He sized the stranger up, knowing he could take him if need be. He appeared to be worse off than any of the other hostiles that he had ever encountered. He was far too thin and straggly looking, 'scruffy' barely did justice to the tattered clothes and broken glasses that sat perched atop the man's nose.

"I don't know where he is," the man admitted, glancing at the ground and it was obvious he was telling the truth.

James regarded him with a baffled air, as though his last hope of saving Juliet just died with this man. At that moment all the fight seemed to fizzle straight out of him. The realization hit him like a thunderbolt; he should have put two and two together long ago. This scrawny pup wasn't one of Richard's at all, hell he probably wasn't even a hostile. The damn kid didn't even appear to know how to take care of himself.

Time came to a grinding halt as they locked eyes with one another, James' a smoky blue with emotion, and the stranger's an empathetic grey, the colour of mountains. The faint noise from the jungle seemed to fade away so that all Sawyer could hear was his own heart beat roaring in ears. It was hopeless, he knew it now. He had failed her.

The stranger regarded him with a confused sympathy. "Why did you need to speak to Richard?" He asked, letting his curiosity get the better of him.

"Juliet's dying," it tumbled out of his mouth before he could do anything about them. Just saying the words was enough to make him lightheaded and he took a step back, looking as though he was considering bolting back into the jungle. The fuzziness in his mind didn't help much.

The man's eyes widened slightly and he hoped to hell that Sawyer didn't notice the worry and recognition plastered all over his face. He glanced over; the southerner appeared too busy coping with his own mental battle.

"What's wrong with her?" He spoke in a deliberately patient tone as if he was speaking to a small child. His tone was serious, but not unkind.

James' eyes narrowed, feeling as though his living nightmare was shattering around his knees.

The stranger slid off of the rock and approached hesitantly. James looked positively shell-shocked, as though he had just wandered out of a war zone and didn't know where he was or what he was doing.

"Maybe, I can help?" The man offered.

That did it. James fixed him with a lethal look.

"Get lost, Shaggy," he growled, his eyes glowing with a dangerous intensity.

The stranger backed up, wincing as the sand that crunched under his feet seemed to break the silence.

_Ok, new tactic_, he thought, once he was sure he was out of the man's strike range.

"Does she have a fever, chills, headache, rash, muscle pains…?" He started to list any and all semi-dangerous symptoms he could think of until Sawyer James at him again and he clamped his mouth shut.

He tried again when the man seemed to go back to ignoring him. "Joint pains, sensitivity to light, lethargy, cardiac arrhythmia, trouble breathing?"

"What the hell are you? A damn medical textbook?" James snapped. He shook his head dizzily and gave in. "She's got pneumonia, ok?"

The man nodded thoughtfully. "See, now we're getting somewhere."

James didn't say anything, but continued to stand in the same spot and look unpleasant and somewhat spaced out.

"So, what kind of pneumonia?"

He was unsure why he bothered to respond. "The kind that kills ya," he drawled sarcastically.

"How the hell should I know?"

The stranger considered his response. If it was bacterial they would have no problem treating it with broad spectrum antibiotics, even here. If she was bad enough to drive him to traipsing around the jungle in this state it was probably viral. He knew he had antivirals packed in his medical bag, strong ones too. Medical supplies seemed to be the only thing that he was well stocked in yet didn't even have a damn razor.

He ran the implications through his mind. He had been lectured for months on the dangers of interacting with the contemps: the people of the period, how he should act around them, who was safe to talk to, who he should avoid. His current situation definitely counted as a 'turn around and walk the other way scenario', but he had already interfered once before and that was a game changer.

_Stupid. Stupid. Stupid _he cursed himself silently wondering if his saving Sawyer from the snake or even Sawyer jumping in that lake after him was the reason Juliet was sick. This was bad, really, _really_ bad.

The universe was a chaotic system and chaotic systems had strong self-defence mechanisms. Even the slightest deviations in time's course were supposed to be counteracted by other equilibrium setting events to keep someone like himself from causing the entire timeline to come apart at the seams. In theory, it was safe enough for him to be here, overlooking the fact that his presence was a complete and utter accident and one that he was ill prepared for.

From what he could tell, he had experienced both temporal and locational slippage at maximal proportions. It had all been messed up in some way somewhere along the lines, leaving him trapped. He just hoped to hell that somebody would figure out his mistake sooner rather than later.

Aaron sighed, not wanting to think how much of an effect his presence was having on the timeline.

_She isn't supposed to die…screw it! I'm already screwed._

"Look," he said finally. "I'll make a deal with you."

James stared at him in such a way that he almost lost his nerve. "I'll help you help Juliet under the condition that you don't ask me any questions?"

_Questions I can't answer_, he thought wryly.

"Oh, is that all? And what the hell are you going to do? Got some magical voodoo plant in yer back pocket?" James spat bitterly. This entire excursion was pointless. He couldn't save Juliet, nobody could.

"No." Aaron returned evenly. "Do we have a deal?"

"Fine," James kicked at the dirt for lack of anything better to do.

"Good. Now wait here."

The younger man was out of sight before he could even protest. He sat back on one of the rocks, feeling the sun's light on the crook of his neck as it drifted higher into the sky. The feeling that he had already lost the fight was growing even stronger. He expected the man's 'help' was simply a ruse to escape. He assumed this was his punishment for all the bitterness and hatred that he had carried around with him his entire life. Fate had dealt him a cruel hand by allowing him to get close to someone, allow him to think that he really could settle down and then rip it all away from him in an instant. He wasn't sure that he could go back to the compound, wasn't sure if he could face their sympathy, if he could sit there and watch her die.

Something hard landed in his lap before he could process how much time had passed. He glanced down at the little, unmarked bottle in confusion half a dozen round, white tablets clinked against the plastic as he picked it up to examine it.

"What the..." he started to say, but Aaron cut him off. "No questions asked that was the deal remember?"

James nodded dumbly.

"Good, then let's go."

James looked down at the ground in an attempt to contemplate what was happening. His thoughts felt heavy and nothing about this situation made an once sense.

"_Go?_" he whispered, staring at what looked like very real medication. The label on the side was too worn to distinguish.

"OK, I'll give you that one," Aaron sighed, shouldering his pack. As he advanced he seemed to slip into a clinical tone not unlike the Doc's.

"I need to go with you. That drug you're holding is Oseltamivir. It's specific to the flu virus, but based on yearly rates of random mutagenesis the influenza subtypes that it was developed for may or may not be present here, therefore I can't guarantee the drug's efficacy without examining her myself."

It was another long moment before James could finally work through what the young man was saying. "_You_ want to come with me to save her with _these_." He rattled the pill bottle for emphasis.

"Hopefully with those," Aaron humoured. "I have more, but those appear to be the best option based on what you've told me."

"And just what kind of scam do ya think yer run', Mr. Abagnale? You gonna infiltrate our camp for yer buddy Richard?" James knew better, but his mind was still sluggish from whatever the Dharma doc had pumped into him and it was easier to act on assumptions, even ones he knew to be false.

Aaron ignored the reference and shook his head. "Hardly, I'm just a lowly, solitary 'hostile'." He replied smugly. "And besides, I'm not in the infiltrating mood. Consider it a thank-you for earlier."

Actually they were even, but James didn't need to know that.

James frowned at him and relented. "Fine, but if you hurt her I'm gonna throw yer hostile butt back in that pond so fast you'll wish I never saved ya in the first place."

Aaron threw up his hands. "Fair enough," he huffed. "So how do we do this?"

* * *

"Are you even a real doc?" James asked skeptically once they were safely inside the electric fence marking the parameter of Dharma territory. Thankfully the persistent rain also limited the flow of traffic in and around the compound to those running security and even they took little notice of the powder blue and white Dharma van pulling up by the side of LaFleur's house.

Aaron considered reminding the man of their 'no questions' agreement, but the haggard look on the older man's features convinced him otherwise.

"I've had quite a bit of clinical training," he admitted. Four years of medical school, another six for an emergency and internal medicine speciality and a joint Ph.D. in pharmacology on the side. Yes he thought, he was a downright nerd.

"Good. Cause if you hurt her…"

"Pond," Aaron stated dryly, "I get it."

James glanced from Aaron to the little yellow house and back again with all the suspicion he would give a stray dog. "Yer house trained right?"

The young doctor grunted, but otherwise ignored the comment.

"So what did they stick you with?" He asked in thinly veiled retort as he watched James' foot snag in the small metal step at the threshold of the door. It caused him to stagger into the entranceway, narrowly missing the sharp corner of the kitchen counter as he pitched forward, catching himself at the last second.

"There ain't nothing wrong with me," James hissed vehemently, unwilling to admit he was still feeling very disoriented.

"Mmm…" the young doctor cocked an eyebrow. "So you just happen to be prone to impaired coordination, confusion, irritability, and acute onset anisocoria?"

"Acute what now?"

Aaron shook his head. "It just means your pupils are uneven. It's a side effect of whatever you got dosed with. Probably a benzodiazepine, that's good because it means they are reasonably well stocked here. And besides, that gash on your forehead is indicative of you falling after they stuck ya."

James' hand unconsciously traced the thin line of sutures across his forehead as he discovered the gash for the first time.

"Well aren't you a real Sherlock Holmes," he ground out, but then the tone of his voice changed to one of concern.

"So Doc, this eye thing…" he started to mutter.

"Will wear off once that stuff gets out of your system in 24-48 hours," Aaron assured. He noticed the change in him before James had really clued in himself. The use of the word "doc" as opposed to "shaggy" or "hostile" at least conveyed some sort of tentative trust enough for James to usher him toward the shower without another word. The lukewarm water and poor pressure felt like heaven to Aaron who could have spent an eternity quenching the months of dirt and grime from his bones.

He stared awestruck at his reflection in the mirror as he shaved away the scraggly unkempt beard. The steam from his shower made the air hot and heavy, but the humidity did little to hide the stranger staring back at him with every sure stroke of the razor. His dirty blonde hair had all but bleached in the relentless Pacific sun except around his temples where it had started to turn prematurely grey.

Probably just the stress, Aaron balked at the absurdity of it all as he took stock of the bent glasses frames which perched crookedly on the bridge of his nose. At least it wasn't all bad, he had managed to pack on a dense layer of muscle mass on his arms and upper chest. The added weight made him look healthy and rugged, like one of the characters in his daughter's favorite story books. He grit his teeth and tried not to think about that, concentrating instead on trimming the tangled mat of hair that reached down below his earlobes.

James was pacing, somewhat shakily, back and forth across the living room when he emerged from the bathroom, clad in a Dharma issue set of scrubs that the older man had managed to swipe from the personnel assignment office.

"You really should sit down until that sedative gets flushed out of system." Aaron issued a sideways glace toward a set of table lamps that had somehow ended up turned over on the floor as a result of the man's pacing.

"m'fine" James grunted. He almost stumbled as he spoke. He was worried, and nauseous, and it had been a full day and a half since he had eaten, most of that had made a reappearance on Horace's and Jin's jumpsuits.

"No," Aaron warned. "You are still quite drugged and you're going to crash soon if you don't take it easy."

"The doc said her lungs are filling with fluid," James admitted as though just remembering the events leading up to him punching out the useless bastard. He had said Juliet was _dying_.

Aaron didn't dare tell him that that was the _pneumonia_ part of pneumonia.

"Alright," Aaron agreed. "We can do something about that, but I need you to get me to her and I'm not sure you can do that right now, Chief." He explained his concern which fell upon deaf ears.

"Gotta save her," James mumbled, the fear of losing her clearly at the forefront of his mind, but he didn't allow it to take hold. Not this time when help was so close. He just had to keep it at bay a little longer and force himself to focus.

* * *

Firstly, thank you to everyone who reviewed. I very much appreciate them and they certainly encourage me to write faster.

Re: Marla's Lost feel free to borrow that line.

Also thanks for bearing with the storyline hence far. I know it seems confusing at the moment, but I have do have a plan lol. ;-P I also promise to stop abusing James soon.

Please review :-)


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